Advances in crop science and biotechnology have led to specialty crops that have one or more desirable traits. Examples of such traits include: germination potential, drought-resistance, pesticide tolerance (e.g., glyphosate tolerance), high-yielding crops, seeds with desirable fatty-acid profiles (e.g., as in low-linoleic acid soybeans), high-oil seeds, insect tolerance (e.g., corn-bore resistance) and the like. When a potential specialty crop is developed (e.g., bred or genetically modified), it must be evaluated with respect to these desirable traits. Thus, the new crop must be replicated in a significant quantity, planted as individual plant specimens, subjected to a number of different stresses in groups, evaluated for growth parameters as individual plant specimens, and statistically analyzed in order to determine the effectiveness of the potential specialty crop with respect to the one or more desirable traits. Further, the plant specimens must be tracked so that the collected growth parameter data can be correlated to the stresses applied to each plant specimen.
Traditionally, researchers plant seeds in trays on various types of germination media by hand, subject the trays to predetermined stress conditions, remove the plant specimens from the trays by hand, evaluate growth parameters of each plant specimen by hand, and track the growth data. However, a growing number of potential specialty crops combined with a need to periodically evaluate specialty crops in production has given rise to a need to prepare, track, and evaluate more plant specimens than is practical by these traditional methods. Further, evaluating growth parameters of plant specimens by optical analysis reduces measurement variation.
This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.